


guilty conscience, fear of death (check, check, check)

by anacruses



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA, Angst, Fake AH Crew, Freeform, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2782280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anacruses/pseuds/anacruses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ryan thinks his mind is fraying. He sleeps, but it feels like it doesn’t count, and when he dreams, he dreams of the dead. Geoff spends most of his time drunk, and he clings to Ryan ever more readily, clutching him in the night and kissing him like a drowning man grasping at a straw."<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	guilty conscience, fear of death (check, check, check)

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as one story, changed into another halfway through, and ended as another story entirely, but it was super fun to write (and on another note I'm sooo happy at all the ramwood that's being posted lately t b h) so I can't even be annoyed.  
> plot-wise? there is none and I am sorry. it's just an incredibly self-indulgent mess of figurative language.  
> written entirely on my phone in the middle of the night so please excuse any glaring errors.  
> ((title from streetlight manifesto's everything went numb))

_Silence, sirens, it all went down like his nightmare the night before._

———

Ryan's ears are ringing.

There is blood running in his eyes, broken glass in the palms of his hands, and his ears are ringing. He stumbles to his feet and the street spins around him.

_Geoff._

_Geoff?_

Geoff is lying a few yards away, pushing himself up shakily. Blood is streaming freely from a cut on his temple and there's a long, jagged gash across his torso, but he pulls himself to his feet and staggers over to Ryan.

He is saying something, but Ryan's ears are ringing, and he can't hear a goddamn thing. Geoff runs his hands through his hair, and he looks terrified, overwhelmed like Ryan hasn't seen him in - - like Ryan's never seen him. He grabs Ryan's arm, pulls him down the street; Ryan struggles to keep up, and Geoff starts shouting at him loud enough that he can almost hear it.

Geoff reaches through the cracked window of a nearby car, unlocks it, and pushes Ryan inside. Ryan rubs the back of his hand against his eyes. His brain is fuzzy and his head is warm and, _god,_ he feels sick.

He leans his forehead against the window and loses the next half of an hour.

———

Ryan wakes up to see Geoff glancing at him from the driver's seat, like he's said something and is waiting for Ryan to answer. Ryan clears his throat, testing his hearing. It's muddled, but it's better. "Yeah?"

"I wanna pull over somewhere and change cars. Get you cleaned up."

"Where are we going, Geoff?"

"I don't know. I don't know." Geoff doesn't look at him when he talks, just stares at the road with his knuckles turning white on the wheel. The sun is setting, and it casts a sickly orange light through the car. Ryan starts picking the glass out of his hands.

"Do you want me to try to get ahold of Jack?"

Geoff looks at him now, his brow furrowed. "What? I--" He pauses, realization crossing his face. He looks at Ryan again, and his face is just sad, his mouth quirked slightly to the side. "No. Let's get well out of the city."

"Geoff...?"

"Leave it." Geoff's voice is quiet, but steady, and Ryan's heard that tone of voice before. He leaves it.

What the fuck happened? Ryan keeps picking at the glass in his palm and tries to remember, but it's like his memory's been wiped, and he can remember the sirens, remember Ray ducking into a hail of gunfire with a grin on his face, remember-- _fire,_ fire and the crunch of metal and the shattering of glass and a searing pain in his leg--

But there's something missing, and it kills him that he doesn't know what.

Geoff pulls over at a seedy motel and puts a pair of sunglasses on over the bruises on his face, gets them a room and pushes Ryan into the shower when they get there. Ryan lets hot water run over himself until his skin is bright red, examines the damage to his body; mostly bruises and burns and superficial cuts, but there's a large burn on his upper thigh and a gash across his chest that's sticky with dried blood. Nothing too horrible, but--

His head hurts.

Ryan gets out of the shower and pulls on his old, filthy jeans. Geoff is waiting for him with half a bottle of whiskey and a needle and thread, and he leans on Ryan's arm as he stitches up his chest, his breath warm against Ryan's skin and his brow low with focus. Ryan plays idly with Geoff's hair, and Geoff seems just out of it enough to let him.

"How's your hearing?" Geoff asks him quietly. Ryan shrugs.

"Geoff, what happened?"

Geoff is quiet for a long moment as he cuts the thread and bandages the stitches. Ryan pulls his shirt on, wincing with the movement. "You don't remember?"

Ryan shakes his head slowly. Geoff sighs and leans back, rubbing his eyes.

"Car crash,” he says finally. “You and I got--we got got."

"What about the others? Ray?"

Geoff just stands up slowly, avoids looking into Ryan's eyes. "I'm gonna go wash all this shit off me."

———

Ryan bandages his own hands, slowly, piecing together what he remembers. He remembers--Christ, he remembers Jack getting shot, blood spraying bright red against the wall behind him. Remembers Michael’s body crumpling to the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut. And he remembers the slow motion sickness of watching Geoff try and fail to find the brake, of the wall approaching them like the end of the line.

He starts pacing, and his ears are ringing.

———

When Geoff gets out of the shower, Ryan is sitting on the edge of the room's lone bed, staring at the Gideon Bible. He's not religious, but it's solid in his hand. Geoff stops when he sees him.

"Ryan?" He's got a towel slung low about his waist, water still clinging to his tattooed skin, and Ryan traces the hollows of his hips with his eyes, and it feels like sin.

"Michael and Jack are dead," he says, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own.

Geoff just nods. He still won't look in Ryan's eyes.

"And Gavin?"

"...yeah."

Ryan swallows. "Ray?"

"Ryan--"

"Geoff, what about Ray?"

Geoff nods again, slowly, and Ryan feels something twist inside him, but it's like his veins are full of novocaine, and the pain can't quite reach him yet.

So he forces himself to his feet, and lets Geoff reach out to him instead, and when he wraps his fingers around Geoff's half-hard cock and sinks his teeth into the hot skin of his throat, it feels like sin.

———

They drive, Geoff sprawled out in the passenger seat, as the dusk turns to twilight turns to night, and they don’t say anything. Ryan flips through radio stations and settles on something slow and quiet that he can’t make out the words to. A passing truck blinds him briefly, and as he blinks to get rid of the spots, the afterimage on his eyelids is that of Ray getting his brains blown out.

He jerks the wheel to the side and slams on the brakes. Geoff reaches out and grabs his arm as he shifts into park.

"Breathe."

Ryan opens the door and stumbles getting out of the car, landing on his knees on the cold asphalt. Anger and fear and desperation well up inside his chest and he yells until his throat gives out on him and then he just hits the ground like a child. He doesn't notice Geoff behind him until he wraps his arms around his chest and buries his face against Ryan's shoulder.

"I know, man," he murmurs, and his scruffy cheek scrapes against Ryan's skin, and Ryan thinks about Ray and he's almost sick.

Instead, he just scrapes his knuckles against the pavement, breath condensing and curling away like smoke off a dying flame, and he feels like something insignificant.

———

When they get back in the car, Ryan wipes the blood off his knuckles and lets Geoff stroke his hair for a few minutes. When the tears finally dry on his cheeks, Geoff starts the car and they drive away from the past.

———

They cross state lines. They keep driving.

———

Geoff turns on the news in the next motel they stop at just in time to see the newscasters confirm the deaths of four of the Fake AH Crew, with two still at large and the targets of a massive manhunt.

Ryan takes the remote from him and turns the TV off. They fuck that night, rough and loud and desperate, and it just feels like screaming into a pillow or punching a wall, and afterwards, Ryan wonders if it would be worth it to kill himself.

———

But he wakes up in the morning, and they keep driving.

———

They switch cars often, and stick to back roads, and one day they rob a gas station out of habit more than anything else, and when Geoff kills the clerk without saying anything, Ryan can see how disinterested he is.

"We could go back," he says in bed that night, and they both know he's lying. "We've both got money put away, or we could just, y'know."

Geoff looks up at him with cold, distant eyes. "Go out in a blaze of glory?"

Ryan shrugs. "As good a way as any to go out."

Geoff doesn't answer, except to rest his head against Ryan’s chest and tangle their fingers together, and Ryan counts his heartbeats until he can’t think anymore, and it feels like practice.

———

Ryan thinks his mind is fraying. He sleeps, but it feels like it doesn’t count, and when he dreams, he dreams of the dead. Geoff spends most of his time drunk, and he clings to Ryan ever more readily, clutching him in the night and kissing him like a drowning man grasping at a straw.

“Why are we doing this,” he asks Ryan one morning, twirling his gun idly in his fingers, the grey dawn light creeping into the car. Ryan just shrugs.

“I have promises to keep.”

Geoff looks at him, frowning, and doesn’t press the issue. He watches the sunlight bounce off the waves of the mighty Raritan, and laces his fingers with Ryan’s on the gearshift.

_And miles to go before I sleep._

_And miles to go before I sleep._

———

They keep driving.

———

They keep driving.

———

Ryan hasn’t slept in nearly a week, and Geoff goes out and gets in a bar fight in Schaumburg, Illinois, comes back to the motel room with blood on his face and his knuckles and the smell of cheap whiskey on his breath.

“You’re an idiot,” Ryan tells him as he wipes off the blood.

“I love you, too,” Geoff says, slurring and grinning. Ryan just flushes.

It’s been days, weeks, months, and they haven’t been back to Los Santos, haven’t yet dignified their friends with visits to their early graves. But Ryan still wears the hoodie he borrowed from Ray and never gave back, and sees his easy grin whenever he shuts his eyes, and that feels like enough for now.

———

They stop driving, and it feels like starting over.

———

Ryan wakes up one morning and realizes he doesn’t feel like half of a missed connection anymore, and it seems to him that he is strong.

“Are you okay?” Geoff asks him over their shitty roadside diner food, because he’s smiling for no real reason, and Ryan doesn’t smile, Not Anymore.

“I’m okay,” Ryan says, smiles at Geoff and takes his hand.

“Are you sure?”

“Geoff.”

“Ryan.”

“Let’s go home,” Ryan says.

———

It feels like absolution.


End file.
